Black Caesar's Clan : a Florida Mystery Story eBook

Brice nodded, absently, as if wearied with the exertion
of their talk. His eyes had left Milo’s,
and had concentrated on the man’s big and hairy
hands. As Milo spoke of the supposititious criminals
who desired his possessions enough to do murder for
them, his fists clenched, tightly. And to Brice’s
memory came a wise old adage:

“When you think a man is lying to you, don’t
watch his face. Any poker-player can make his
face a mask. Watch his hands. Ten to one,
if he is lying, he’ll clench them.”

Brice noted the tightening of the heavy fists.
And he was convinced. Yet, he told himself,
in disgust, that even a child of six would scarce
have needed such confirmation that the clumsily blurted
tale was a lie.

He nodded again, as Milo looked at him with a shade
of anxiety.

The momentary silence was broken by footsteps on the
stairs. Claire was descending. Brice gathered
his feet under him and sat upright. It was easier,
now, to do this, and his head had recovered its feeling
of normality, though it still ached ferociously.

At the same instant, through the open doorway, from
across the lawn in the direction of the secret path,
came the quaveringly sweet trill of a mocking bird’s
song. Despite himself, Gavin’s glance
turned toward the doorway.

“That’s just a mocker,” Milo explained,
loudly, his face reddening as he looked in perturbation
at his guest. “Sweet, isn’t he?
They often sing, off and on, for an hour or two after
dark.”

“I know they do,” said Gavin (though he
did not say it aloud). “But in Florida,
the very earliest mocking bird doesn’t sing
till around the first of March. And this isn’t
quite the middle of February. There’s
not a mocking bird on the Peninsula that is singing,
yet. The very dulcet whistler, out yonder, ought
to make a closer study of ornithology. He—­”

Brice’s unspoken thought was shattered.
For, unnoticed by him, Milo Standish had drawn forth,
with tender care, an exquisitely carved and colored
meerschaum pipe from a case on the smoking-stand,
and was picking up the fat tobacco jar.

CHAPTER IV

THE STRANGER FROM NOWHERE

For a moment, Brice stared agape and helplessly flustered,
as Standish proceeded to thrust his meerschaum’s
rich-hued bowl into the tobacco jar. Then, apparently
galvanized into action by the approach of Claire from
the stairway, he stepped rapidly forward to meet her.

As though his shaky powers were not equal to the task
he reeled, lurched with all his might against the
unprepared Standish and, to regain his balance, took
two plunging steps forward.

He had struck Milo at such an angle as to rap the
latter’s right elbow with a numbing force that
sent the pipe flying half way across the hall.
The tobacco jar must have gone too, had not one of
Gavin’s outflung hands caught it in mid-air,
as a quarterback might catch a football.